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Among the papers of the late George Ripley is the following list of names under the head of "Transcendentalism," plainly intended to convey his notion of the phases through which idealism in New England passed during the several passages of its career. No hint is given of the rule adopted by the author in making this enumeration. It was evidently not the order of development in time, for in that case W. E. Channing, R. W. Emerson, James Walker, F. H. Hedge, would claim mention among the first. It was not the order of speculative rank; for in that case some who are placed at the beginning would be omitted entirely. The author probably followed a classification suggested by some conception of his own in regard to the unfolding of ideas and their sequence from one stage to another. It will be observed that a few important names are passed by altogether, as, for instance, that of O. A. Brownson, who made idealism the basis of his speculative position, first as a reformer, and afterwards as a Roman Catholic; and also that of Henry James, an exceedingly able, eloquent, and uncompromising writer, who applied the Transcendental postulate to society in a manner to terrify cautious men. Why these were omitted does not appear; perhaps Mr. Ripley did not take the trouble to complete his list; perhaps he had in view only the philosophical aspects of the Transcendental movement, and did not care to follow it beyond the line of recognized ideas, either in reform or theology. Here is the list, as existing in his manuscript: N. L. Frothingham (1820), Convers Francis, John Pierpont, George Ripley (1830), F. H. Hedge, James Walker, Thomas T. Stone, W. E. Channing, J. F. Clarke, R. W. Emerson, W. H. Channing, Theodore Parker. Such a grouping of itself implies that idealism took its hue from the temperament of those professing it; that it was no definite or fixed system, but rather a mode of speculative thought which each believer pursued according to the bent of his mind. The first two names suggest the literary tendency of the new faith; the third, its application to specific reform; the next four, its bearing on the principles of philosophy; the two Channings, J. F. Clarke, and Theodore Parker illustrate its bearing on points of religious opinion; while Mr. Emerson represents idealism pure and simple, apart from all philosophical or sectarian beliefs, from all critical or speculative dogmas.

Only by virtue of some such general classification can N. L. Frothingham be ranked among Transcendentalists. He was not a philosopher, not a man interested in abstruse speculation, not a reformer of society as a whole or in part, not an innovator on established ways of thinking or living. He was a man of letters, an enthusiastic admirer of literary form, of eloquent language, of ingenious, elegant thought. His large library contained none of the great masterpieces of speculation, little of Plato, less of Aristotle, next to nothing of Spinoza or Kant, nothing of Schelling or Hegel, but much of Heine, Schiller, Riickert, and poets in either prose or verse, whether English, French, or German. Writers of opposite schools interested him if they wrote brilliantly, but to profound spiritual differences he was insensible. He enjoyed Macaulay and Ruskin, Walter Scott and Dickens, Cicero and Shakespeare. Novelties he disliked and repelled. Wordsworth he did not read, or Byron; Keats he never spoke of; Shelley he abhorred; the Victorian bards he could not relish. In the Transcendental reform of his time he took